


When Will Spring Come?

by PhoenixUnknown



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: ??? Is that the tag I'm looking for?, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anthro!AU, Anthropomorphic, Fawn!Francel, Human!Haurchefant, M/M, Mild Blood and Gore, Wolf!Aymeric, Wolf!Estinien, furry au, mild depictions of violence, wound depiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23290960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixUnknown/pseuds/PhoenixUnknown
Summary: Haurchefant, without his knowledge, has been ordained keeper of the Woods. This becomes apparent when one of the Lords of the Woods has been gravely injured and he feels that desperation like a lightening strike to his heart. Or, in which Haurchefant and his sled dogs find a very pretty half-deer, half man injured in the middle of the Wood and he is compelled to take them home and nurse them back to health.Or Something.
Relationships: Haurchefant Greystone/Francel de Haillenarte
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	When Will Spring Come?

**Author's Note:**

> [[ -Gestures vaguely at all of whatever the fuck this is- ]]

There is a lone cabin in the woods where the wood of it is light pine, shingles firm and tight, and the chimney always billowing smoke in a twisting stack to the heavens. It’s been months since the first snow, or rather-months since the first snow had started snowing and refused profusely to  _ stop _ . That...might be an exaggeration, but that is not to say the snow was not deep, the cold not harsh, and loneliness not poignant. The gentleman who lived here was strong willed and honest, he loved his fellow man, he loved his sled dogs, and he loved his Gods. One would be hard pressed to find a man so full of life and joy as Haurchefant, the way he danced around his stove with a hymn on his lips and a stew pot bubbling on his stove. His dogs all piled at the kitchen doorway with not a nail past the frame. Their eyes followed from side to side as he danced from cutting board to pot, tubers and vegetables the most he had to add to the meaty stew. Dinner simmering cheerily away on the stove, the smell of preserved onion and garlic soon to be wafting into the air. 

Certainly it would have been, he hadn’t intended on slow cooking; not until a shock touched his spine that jolted him back to the present and to grim awareness. He looked about the room for anything out of place, for anything that might give him a clue for the overbearing darkness which had set upon him, his inherent joy sapped from his bones and replaced with a simmering anger and frustration that was alarming in its suddenness.

“Something is not right.” He declares while shuttering the stove as low as it can go, then turning to his dogs who shuffle out of the doorway so he may briskly pass them by. They pace after him with a similar air of nervousness, watching as he trails around the sitting room for anything out of place. From the crackling fireplace to the high back chair and wool rug in front of it, to the messy bed he’d pulled to the corner nearest the fireplace--seeing all his things in their place did not ease him. It is only when he stalks to a window and pushes the curtains out of the way to gaze outside does his sense of urgency change, and he knows something out there is pulling on the strings of his fate.

It is still fairly bright out, all things considered, between light grey clouds in the sky and slowly falling snow. The morning was gone though, and his time would be cut shorter for it. The dogs know something is happening when they’re given an early snack of hot mixed meats, liver, fat and bone broth. By the time he stalks to the mudroom, his dogs are whining profusely, tails wagging and pacing incessant as he begins to dress into layer after layer of protective clothing; from warm chimerical felt leggings and tunic to a double layer of oiled parka and caribou hide pants and jackboots, he was watertight and enveloped in warmth and conductive to aether. At his waist he secures his handgonne and gauss barrel, the hip opposite he straps a shortblade, and on his back he slings a shortbow and a slim quiver. Each dog soon prancing and panting in their own matching canvas booties. 

His dogs are braying when they are let outside, leaping through the deep snow with ease as he pulls the sled from the side-shed attached the cabin. Loaded with freeze-dried preserves for the dogs, first aid kits, and provisions, (tent, oil, water, ammunition, food-stuffs) he tucks a waterproof canvas around the sled and lashes his team to the lead. He settles quickly on one lead dog, two pointers to help steer, four team dogs to help with the haul and two huge wheel dogs to bear the brunt of the weight of the sled and its contents, he keeps two extra leashed to draft behind the sled if an emergency crops up. 

They split the snow easily, comparatively-the team didn't need to be so large for just himself and meager supplies. There was no moose at the end of the road for them to haul over several miles. He wasn't hauling entire tree trunks, so naturally they flew over the snow. His lead picked the best tracks to follow, his pointers guiding the team and wheel dogs safely around each bend, and his wheel dogs are steady and unmoving even against the knocking of the sled or slamming of its runners into the ground. Focused and hard working. 

He dropped brightly colored guides along the route at intervals to help keep track of his location, and his gaze between trees and ahead of his dogs was hawkish and suspicious. 

_ Something was not right.  _

At first, he almost missed it as they passed, a glint of silver in the snow. Pulling his team to a stop and backtracking while the dogs rested and snacked on the dried pieces of fat and meat he gave them--he found a steeljaw trap dusted with snow, poised to slam shut if ever something would settle on the metal pan in its middle. He activated it with a thick stick buried in the snow by it. What was left behind was a stick snapped in half by the off set teeth of the trap and the force of the jaws shutting. 

He made sure to show his lead dog the trap, letting him smell the metal and see the glint before he dared lash them together again and head out. Stroking back the dense fur of the dogs forehead and staring into its eyes. 

“Easy now…” 

He murmurs to it, and the dog stares back evenly for a short time before pulling its face from his gloved hands and nosing past his leg-ready to work more. Just as he guided, they went much slower, picking away between the forest and following the trail of laid traps that Haurchefant disabled along the way. 

Then he hears the howling in the distance, high pitched and barely disguising the agonized scream behind it. It dies off to an eerie silence that his dogs have all tuned their ears in towards, the furious wings of ravens can be heard in the distance as they take flight. His dogs begin to bray as they pull immediately towards where the wolves howling had been heard. In no time they are soon bursting past the wolf pair, the two wolves leap out of the way as the sled finds them; they don’t go far as they seem otherwise unperturbed and settle back on their haunches. Haurchefant realizes that he had passed between not just the two wolves, but something else as well that they were settled near; a body struggling in the snow with blood pumping lazily from a wound in their leg made by one of those accursed leghold traps. Their struggles were weak, the snow disturbed around them with holes gouged in the ground and chunks of short-hair - fur in clumps strewn about the small perimeter. This person was also naked--mostly; fawn spotted fur looked like it was draped around their shoulders, and lined their chest and the small of their back until it thinned out and showed near alabaster skin. Haurchefant cursed at the state of the other, and fired several arrows at the feet of the wolves to make them give a wider berth for him to approach--it wasn’t until he rushed forward that the two wolves in turn dashed out of his way again.

The two wolves which watched him were huge, one of mottled white and grey with icy blue eyes, the other a sleek black with brown and white patches of fur over its scruff and belly. They remained unmoving, even with a full team of sled dogs snarling at them-just watching Haurchefant until he could stand it no more and turned his attention to the young man. The trap had dug deep into his leg, but with the Gods blessing no arteries or major tendons and ligaments would be destroyed. The fur that was covering the shuddering body seemed to be falling out due to stress, but it was also naturally disappearing almost like it was being reabsorbed until all that remained were limp ears that would normally be expressive and constantly moving on the head of a deer’s head, and young velvety antler growth peeking from mused blond hair with rounded tips, and a lifeless tail where the white fur of its underside was pink now from where he had flung blood in his struggles. It smeared his skin in streaks and his hands were pink where he had once struggled with the trap as well.

“What in bloody he--”

There was no time to gape, his first line of action was breaking open the trap to release the slender leg caught within. The injury pulsed with a freer flow of blood momentarily, but that meant he could bring the man to his sled where he cleared the sled of its supplies and laid the creature within the carriage or basket of it. As quickly as he could, he made a makeshift tourniquet and wrap to stop the flow and checked the creature's vitals right after; breathing shallow and quick-his temperature dropping.

It was a tight fit in his sled after wrapping the smaller form up and gently strapping him in as far to one side as he could, he took the leader dog off its hitch and put it in the tight nook left on the smaller man's good side. The snow from its coat couldn’t penetrate the canvas he was wrapped in, but the warmth soon would, and it would stay there. 

He let the two dogs coasting behind take over the lead and prayed for a smooth ride. 

A thought crossed his mind as he was about to lift the brake, nagging and niggling at him until Haurchefant turned to find the two wolves still sitting and watching him with clear intelligence.

“There were dozens of traps like that on the way here, there uh.. Could be more hidden all around for miles. I disabled what I could but… be careful…”

Then, in a manner most eerie, that regal tri-color wolf inclined its head with blue eyes never leaving his own. It was startling and sent shivers down his spine. Haurchefant kicked off his brake in a hurry and carefully got his dogs turned around. The new leaders followed the old trail rigidly, his dogs tongues were lolling and he could tell they were eager to take the new weight home and rest.

_ “How could you let him go!”  _ The mottled white wolf snarled, finally jumping up and showing off his raised hackles, ‘ _ That was not just anyone he took, last child or not!” _

The tri-color wolf stood in a slow and weary manner, shaking the snow from his coat.

_ “Any other seasons, maybe we could have been sufficient, we could have cared for him--you should know shifting like that is unnatural, he only did because the strength and life needed to hold that form was leaving him. He had no more power left. Had we changed and broken that trap, then what? In the dead of winter he would surely succumb to infection, he would not be able to travel with his family around the territory to feed. Already he was too weak before that man came.” _

The two wolves begin to trot away from the scene shoulder to shoulder back into the dense parts of the evergreen forest. This time they were exceedingly careful and on the lookout for trappers equipment -- the territory and surrounding subjects would need to be warned about this…

_ “For all we know  _ **_he_ ** _ could be the trapper.” _

_ “No,’  _ the larger wolf responds,  _ ‘I have seen him hunt, and I watched him when first he was...left here.” _

The white mottled wolf swung around to stare stonily at his companion before chuffing under his breath.  _ “Well, I am not telling the missus, or any of that family that their littlest one has been temporarily re-homed.” _

_ “No. I did not assume you would.” _

**Author's Note:**

> [[ More fic that I will never ever update again probably but I'm determined to post all my ideas and what I've written of them rather than let them rot on this laptop. The good, the bad, and the dirty. ]]


End file.
